The Portuguese Parliament adopted on January 29, 2021 the legalization of medically assisted death. In France, it is the Leonetti-Claeys law which organizes the end of life, a text that some deputies would like to see evolve.
- Portugal has legalized euthanasia, becoming the fourth country in Europe to do so.
- In France, the Leonetti-Claeys law establishes a legal framework on the end of life but does not authorize euthanasia.
- It is for this reason that 118 LR and LREM deputies have tabled a bill to make euthanasia legal in France.
Choose your death as you choose your life. The Portuguese Parliament adopted a law on Friday January 29, 2021 to authorize “medically assisted death” by a large majority (136 votes for, 78 against and 4 abstentions), becoming the fourth European country to legalize euthanasia. The text must still be submitted to President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa before being promulgated, but this is only a formality.
In the rest of Europe, the end-of-life debate is gradually advancing. In Germany, assisted suicide has been permitted since February 2020, after the Federal Constitutional Court ruled it unconstitutional to prevent a person from ending their life if they so wish. Similarly, Spanish parliamentarians voted last December in favor of legalizing euthanasia, becoming the sixth country in the world to authorize it after the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada and New Zeeland.
A French puzzle
If in Western Europe, progressives push for people to have the possibility of dying with dignity, in France, the debate on euthanasia is much more heated. Two cases have particularly caught the attention of public opinion in recent years. The first is of course the case of Vincent Lambert, this 42-year-old man who died on July 11, 2020 after spending eleven years of his life in a vegetative state. For many years, his parents, devout Catholics, fought a legal battle to prevent the artificial respirators that kept their son alive from being disconnected.
The other delicate case also took place in 2020 with Alain Cocq, 57 years old and suffering from an incurable disease. With the impossibility of resorting to euthanasia, this resident of Dijon, an activist for the end of life with dignity, decided to stop eating and hydrating himself, while filming his last hours of his life in live for facebook. It was his way of showing the agony and the atrocity of the end of life without the possibility of ending his suffering.
In French law, it is the Leonetti-Claeys law, relating to the rights of patients and the end of life, which governs this practice. The text was voted on in 2005 and then modified in 2016 due to the Vincent Lambert affair. This law stipulates that the unreasonable obstinacy of the medical profession as well as the artificial prolongation of the life of a patient are prohibited when the latter is not able to express his will. The decision to stop treatment must be taken collectively by health professionals, who can then administer a dose of palliative care so that the person does not suffer. In addition, the patient can express his consent in order to limit or even cease his treatment, a decision that the medical profession must respect while informing the person of the consequences of his act. Finally, a trusted person can be chosen by the patient to help him in his steps and who will serve as guarantor of the patient’s decision.
Change legislation to make euthanasia accessible to all
If all these provisions are supposed to help a person to die with dignity, it is still not possible to speak of euthanasia in France. Indeed, for the moment, the Leonetti-Claeys law simply establishes the refusal of therapeutic relentlessness for an incurable person as well as the use of deep sedation to shorten their suffering, but not assisted suicide. The decision to let a person die rests with the doctors – and not with the patient – who must estimate whether the patient is indeed yes or no, at the end of his life. In this case, it is more accurate to speak of support towards death rather than euthanasia.
This is why 118 deputies La République En Marche and Les Républicains tabled a bill on Wednesday 27 January in order to change the legislation. They call in particular to “ensure universal access to palliative care in France”, which would prevent certain patients from having to go abroad to have recourse to euthanasia. According to the deputies, legalizing euthanasia in France would be a social measure since only those who have the means can afford to travel abroad to die.
According to them, such a law, which would make euthanasia possible for all patients suffering from an incurable disease and who no longer want to suffer, would “desacralize” the role of the doctor, sole justice of the peace in the Leonetti-Claeys law, to the benefit of the will of the patient, the first interested party. “Lhe principle is that doctors are right no matter what., indicated François Lambert, the nephew of Vincent Lambert, about the current provisions of the law on euthanasia. Tout is based on the decision of the doctor who becomes all-powerful and this benefitsde facto, to pro-lifers. If you don’t agree with the doctor, you are judged ’emotionally’ and unethical, so it’s up to him to make the decision without thinking about the patient or the relatives. As this law relates to a so-called sensitive subject, there is no right of defense. It should be integrated into a legal framework to make other voices heard.”